anorexia

A new phase 1 clinical trial has found that a single dose of psilocybin combined with psychotherapy may be a promising treatment for anorexia nervosa, a mental illness that is notoriously difficult to treat and for which there are currently no approved medications.The mental health benefits of psilocybin, the main psychoactive ingredient in magic mushrooms, continue to be explored in clinical trials. There have already been trials testing psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy as a treatment for depression and anxiety, and now…

By University of Copenhagen - The Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences May 5, 2023Using DNA technology and advanced bioinformatics analyses, the researchers identified distinct and marked changes in composition and function of the intestines’ trillions of bacteria and viruses in cases with anorexia nervosa. Credit: Søren Vestergaard/University of CopenhagenContrary to common belief, anorexia nervosa is not just a desire to be skinny. Rather, it is a complicated mental illness that alters the brain’s control over hunger…

There is a sense in which Hadley Freeman’s Good Girls has been written by two authors: the anorexic teenager she once was and the recovered 44-year-old journalist with three children she now is (she was, until recently, a staff writer on the Guardian and, for almost a decade, its fashion correspondent). Anorexics tend to be unreliable witnesses when in the grip of the illness and, at times, there is an oddity about this book, a curious sense of separation between the suffering younger self and the aloof older self, but…

Hadley Freeman was 14 when a seemingly innocuous comment blew her life apart. Three years earlier her family had relocated from New York to London, and she enjoyed the special status that being American conferred on her among her British peers. But she struggled to find her place among teenage girls who were embracing bras and boys – “The grown-up world was pressing in, monsters making the door bulge inwards while I frantically tried to push it back.”On this particular day, Freeman was in a PE lesson at school, sitting on…

Anorexia is an eating disorder that causes individuals to be overly concerned with their appearance and diet.The largest study to date reveals significant alterations in brain structure in anorexic individuals.Important differences in the brains of those with and without anorexia nervosa have been found, according to a major study headed by neuroscientists at the University of Bath (UK) that involved worldwide collaborators.In the UK, nearly a quarter of a million individuals aged 16 and older are affected by anorexia, a…

A devastating and potentially deadly eating disorder, anorexia nervosa exerts its toll on the body. However, a new study also highlights the impact a lack of sufficient nutrition can have on the brain, by seriously reducing critical measures of brain structure and health.  Based on a total of 1,648 female brain scans (685 with anorexia nervosa) collected from 22 different locations, researchers found decreases in cortical thickness, subcortical volumes and cortical surface area in people with anorexia. Essentially, the…